This poor little girl was rescued by a caring individual in Okotoks, Alberta from a garage sale, where she was being sold along with the house-hold junk. She was emaciated and weak. Her legs were deformed and her jaw was deformed due to lack of proper calcium supplementation. She hadn't been given a humid hide while shedding, so old skin had wrapped around her toes and cut of circulation. Because of this, the toes died and started to fall off. We picked her up from Okotoks while we were there visiting Family.

 

When she arrived, her toes were in the process of coming off and she had layers of skin stuck to her feet. After a few weeks of mineral oil massages and calcium therapy, her feet and toes were in the best shape possible for heand her bones were strong. She could even eat a pinky!

A few years ago, on one of our feral cat trapping outings, we came upon these four beautiful little kittens. While setting a trap in an old metal scrap shed, I heard a tiny mew coming from amongst the junk. I scaled the old cars and rusted wires, to find a litter of four nestled in the center of a tire, ontop of some old oily newspaper. They were about 1 and a half weeks old when we found them. We were determined to catch their mother, and we spent another nine hours waiting patiently in hiding, in the hot summer sun, hoping that the mother cat would enter one of our traps. Once night fell, we had to make the decision; should we take them, or leave them? We knew that the mother would be distressed, but we had to weigh the pros and cons. There was no doubt that once we left, the mother would move her kittens to a more secretive location. If that happened, we probably wouldn't be able to trap the kittens until they were weaned, and running feral amongst the colony. Trapping feral cats is extremely difficult, and often takes weeks just to get a few cats...giving these kittens plenty of time to impregnate other cats, or to become pregnant themselves. We decided that we had to take them, to save them from a life of starvation, disease, and danger on the streets...and to prevent them from adding even more kittens to the already overwhelming feral population.

We bottlefed the kittens, whom we named Brody, Emo, Pongo, and Monty, and they grew up to be the most amazing, loveable, kittens ever. They followed us around the house and yard, and they loved to go for trips to the store. They ended up being extremely well socialized kittens! They charmed their adopters and found wonderful new loving homes, free of the perils of the city streets.

Docker was rescued by a dedicated individual from a neglectful home. He was being kept with two other full grown male dragons in a 33 gallon tank, with no lighting or heating. They were obviously fighting, and one of the other males had pulled Docker's tail off and it was rotting in the corner of the tank.

When he arrived, his wound was infected and he was emaciated and weak. We put him on antibiotics and began treating his wound with baytril, a topical medication. He wouldn't eat on his own, so we fed him a special blend of crickets, squash, superworms, Omnivore Aid, and liquid calcium via syringe. At the time, we were extremely full of reptiles, so after two weeks of care, he was transferred to another rescue, Chaotic Exotics, which is sadly no longer in operation. However, Docker remains with the previous owners of Chaotic Exotics as a permanent and beloved pet.

This year, The McDonald Family Animal Rescue assisted in a rescue effort at a reserve outside of Edmonton. It was a formidable task, requiring support from reserve residents, the Chief and band council, as well as concerned animal lovers outside of the reserve. Many of the reserve residents love the dogs and appreciate the assistance, as they themselves don't have the means to help all of the dogs  but hate to see them suffer.

The coordinator of this rescue effort worked tirelessly  to help the dogs she had come to know over the years she's been volunteering on the reserve. Before liberating any dogs, foster homes for dogs to be rescued had to be secured. Most of these dogs have never been inside a house. Some dogs have health problems that require temporary quarantining. Foster homes for these dogs are not easy to find. Most of the dogs require vet care well outside of our budget, so donations had to be secured as well.  Once an appropriate foster home was secured, and we were sure that there was affordable vet care available, we were able to make our first visit out to the reserve on January 28th, 2007.  Tragically, the Chief had already ordered the snaring and "disposal" of all unowned dogs.  We were one day too late.  Some of the dogs that the rescue coordinator had been desperate to help were victims of this "culling."  She was devestated.

We were still able to help a few dogs and did what we could on that day.  We had one van and limited resources, but we were able to rescue three dogs, two of which were pregnant.

Niinimaa is probably a Shepherd/Border Collie Cross.  The coordinator had been asked to remove her. She was apparantly a new dog at the reserve, abandoned at the side of the highway and left to fend for herself with the other dogs. She was scared and reluctant to come with us. It took a lot of coaxing and patience from the rescue coordinator to get close enough to her for us to slip the leash around her neck. Once the leash was on, she refused to walk with us and we had to carry her to the van. She was terrified when she got to the foster home, but she quickly warmed up to the people around her. She went to a foster family in Calgary, and was later adopted into a loving home.

Poor Miss Ava is the luckiest of the three dogs we managed to rescue from the r eserve. She has had a tough life, and has obviously suffered a lot. She was starving and came to eat  some wet cat food we had left out as bait.  She came to us willingly but was also unfamiliar with a collar  and leash, so we had to carry her to the van as well. We could tell her ear was injured, but it wasn't until her foster home cleaned the

wound that night,  that it was discovered to be was very serious. We thought it was probably a fight wound, but after her foster mom took her to the Barrhead Veterinary Clinic, we found out that it was a terrible knife wound. It was badly infected and the smell was nauseating. The vet also discovered that she has a hernia, which was fixed when she was spayed. She is missing half of her tail from a previous injury, and was also pregnant. She was a wonderful mother, often helping Special Kay with her litter!

Ava and Special Kay both gave birth to six beautiful puppies each, and they all found amazing homes with people that love and cherish them. This wouldn't have been possible without the dedication of the foster family, who were with all 12 puppies and their mothers 24/7. They drove them back and forth from the vet, cleaned and medicated, and completely turned their lives over to these dogs.